On the road: Volvo C30 2.0D SE

Yes, the C30 2.0D SE is a Volvo, but not as we know it. Photographs: Simon Stuart-Miller

It is the harsh fate of some car manufacturers to be imprisoned by success. For, in capturing the public's imagination, a brand image can also be held captive by that same imagination. Such is the case with Volvo. It's almost impossible to say the word without picturing something reliably heavy. Not only are Volvos substantial, but they're also not what you'd call fun.

Lumbered with the weight of the world, the Volvo is stoical, but also sombre and filled with the kind of existential sadness that only a long, dark Scandinavian winter can produce.

It's no surprise that Kurt Wallander, Henning Mankel's fictional detective, drives a Volvo. His model is an XC70, a proper Arctic battleship of a car. Baggy and brooding, the XC70 and Wallander are made for each other, a lugubrious meeting of man and machine. It just wouldn't look right if he drove, say, a Ford Focus. And it wouldn't look much less wrong if he drove a Volvo C30. This is a Volvo that lacks something. Namely about four foot of back end and half a tonne of bulk.

Aside from the badge and grille, there's little about the C30 that says, "Volvo". You might as well be in a Ford Focus, except the Focus is a much better thought-out car. A left-hand ignition is never a good start. It runs counter to natural law. Like trousers with the fly down the side, it's one of those things you'll always struggle to get used to.

Then there's the colour. Mine was called Orange Flame, which was oddly reminiscent of the shade I once painted my kitchen when I lived in a cramped batch pad and wanted it to look more interesting. Of course, the result was that it looked like a cramped batch pad with an orange kitchen. And much the same applies to the C30. It looks like a cramped three-door with an Orange Flame finish.

As you'd expect with a two-litre engine, there's plenty of pep, and it purrs on the open road, but in the city it's not a smooth drive. A Volvo, at least in the correctional facility of the popular imagination, should be a giant padded coffin on wheels. But the C30 comes with a suspension that could unnerve the dead.

However, if it's not what I imagined, the point about the imagination is that it's not real. And in reality Volvo has been part of Ford for more than a decade and is due to be sold to the Chinese manufacturer Geely. It's only slightly more Swedish than Kenneth Branagh. Why the C30 isn't just a classy Focus, which is what it should be and perhaps wants to be, is not obvious. The Focus is a great car for what it is. The C30 is a mediocre car for what it isn't: a real Volvo.